Stem Wall Repair in Auburn, WA
Call for the Best Stem Wall Repair in Auburn and the King County Area
Fixing Crumbling or Failing Stem Walls - When and How
Stem walls are a major part of your home’s structure — so if you start noticing horizontal cracks around them, it is best to be safe than sorry. Fortunately, when caught early, stem wall can be repaired efficiently. Just make sure the job is handled by experts!
Where do Stem Wall Cracks Come From?
The immediate cause for damage to your stem walls may vary depending on your property’s location, but the root cause does tend to be the same — rebar oxidation. Slowly but surely, as the rebar continues to disintegrate, cracks will continue until the concrete splits completely.
Unfortunately, the way oxidation works, it can be very hard to stop once the process has started. Many inexperienced contractors are willing to offer an epoxy seal as a quick fix — but this will rarely fix the problem. The rebar is likely to continue rusting, just hidden from view.
Sturdy as concrete is, it remains a porous material. These pores, in turn, are a good place for tiny amounts of water to collect– either because of a construction flaw or because of general humidity. The water will in turn conduct electricity, and the tiny — imperceptible — current formed within will progressively degrade both the rebar and the outside of your concrete.
Cracks tend to be small at first, which makes them look like something that you can ignore until next spring. However, at some point, rusting will have extended enough that it will break the concrete completely. This is what you want to avoid — once things have reached this level, you have a potential life threat on your Auburn foundation and stem walls.
So, what can you do about it? If caught on time, we can carry out stem wall repair quickly and aggressively.
How Do You Repair a Concrete Wall? Stem Wall Repair
The key to repairing this problem for good is not to just fill the cracks, but to deal with the rusting underneath. This will require us to:
- Reach the rebar, which will involve us chipping into the wall
- Once we have reached the problem area, we will treat it with a sandblast and an ion blocking epoxy
- To patch the hole, we will use a special cement, mixed with an anodic inhibiting agent
Leave it to dry off, and everything in your Auburn home will be as good as new!
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